APS James S. Jackson Lifetime Achievement Award for Transformative Scholarship

James S. Jackson, a pioneering social psychologist known for his research on race and ethnicity, racism, and health and aging among African Americans, died on September 1, 2020, following a nearly 50-year career at the University of Michigan. In tribute to Jackson’s transformative, diversity-focused scholarship, the APS James S. Jackson Lifetime Achievement Award for Transformative Scholarship honors APS members for their lifetime of outstanding psychological research that advances understanding of historically disadvantaged racial and ethnic groups and/or understanding of the psychological and societal benefits of racial/ethnic diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The type of scholarship honored by the award is broad in scope and research methodology, and encompasses research on historically disadvantaged racial/ethnic groups residing anywhere in the world. Recipients’ research contributions may be in any field or area of psychological science.

APS’s lifetime achievement awards are not exclusive. In other words, an exceptional psychological scientist might be awarded all of them.


Nominations will open in mid-2024.

View a list of James S. Jackson Award Recipients


James S. Jackson Lifetime Achievement Award for Transformative Scholarship Committee

Kai Cortina, Member
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
Sandra Graham, Member
University of California, Los Angeles
Rachael Jack, Chair
University of Glasgow
James Jones, Member
University of Delaware

2024 Award Recipients


Vickie M. Mays

University of California, Los Angeles

APS Fellow Vickie M. Mays is a University of California, Los Angeles, Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Psychology in the College of Letters and Sciences and the Department of Health Policy and Management in the Fielding School of Public Health and directs the BRITE Center for Science, Research, and Policy. She has also held multiple appointments in advisory positions to governmental bodies such as the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and others. A clinical psychological scientist, Mays’s pioneering research in HIV, race-based discrimination, and in recent years COVID delves into mental and physical health disparities affecting racial and ethnic minority populations. Her work on the intersectionality of race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and class effects on mental and physical health has influenced not only the field of psychological science but also public policy. Her many awards include the American Public Health Association Mental Health Section’s Carl Taube Award for Lifetime Contributions to the Field of Mental Health, the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Contributions to Public Policy, and myriad other honors from both major professional societies and community organizations. She was a postdoctoral scholar at the Program for Research on Black Americans at the University of Michigan with Director James Jackson. 


Robert Sellers

University of Michigan

APS Fellow Robert Sellers is the Charles D. Moody Collegiate Professor of Psychology and a professor of education at the University of Michigan. His seminal work on Black American racial identity challenged prevailing assumptions and transformed the way scholars understand and study racial and ethnic identity, discrimination, and well-being. Sellers and his colleagues not only conceptualized a theoretical framework for understanding the multiple dimensions of racial/ethnic identity, but also developed an instrument for its assessment, the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity (MIBI). The impact of this work reaches beyond personality and social psychology into developmental, educational, and clinical psychological science, and Sellers’s trainees and others have drawn upon it to examine identity processes in other groups, in numerous contexts, and throughout the lifespan. Sellers’s work has been recognized with multiple awards, including a 2023 APS Mentor Award.